Television content is delivered to users in many different ways, and in many different formats. For example, a user may subscribe to a cable or satellite television service to access high definition or alternative language versions of certain channels. While cable or satellite receivers may be able to identify the channel that a user is watching, such receivers often do not send this information to the television or other media devices. Often, they send only a bare TV signal without channel information, so that other devices do not know what channel is being viewed. In some cases, televisions or other media devices may benefit from having access to channel information of the viewed channel in order to customize a user experience based at least in part on that information.
Accordingly, it is highly desirable to provide systems and methods to determine what channel a user is viewing, even when the TV signal does not contain any channel information.